[ExI] Politics of Radical Life Extension / Indefinite Lifespans

[Adrian Tymes]

On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 4:37 PM John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Aug 11, 2018 at 3:26 PM, John Tracy Cunningham <johntc at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Should substantial healthy life extension become available, I would certainly try to obtain the treatment(s) for myself and my wife at a minimum.If I live quite a bit longer than expected (which I expect to happen), and many of my peers do the same, this will throw the allocated budget into a cocked hat.
> I don't think you need to worry about that very much. If life extension technology has advanced that much then other areas will have advanced too and improvements in technology has already made us richer.

No, actually, problems are cropping up all the time even today, with
life-long pensions bankrupting those who gambled on people not living
substantially longer than when the pension agreements were set up
decades ago.  So far as I can tell, this is becoming the main problem
with pensions - and with corporations and governments who set them up.

I can see the possibility of a law forbidding all future
pensions-for-life, and adjusting any current ones to some (ultimately
arbitrary) cap, after which there will be a bunch of people who had
planned on further pension income who suddenly have no further income
source.

Given recent demonstrations of the new normal for government
competence, I can also see this law being so poorly written that it
whacks Social Security.